Symbolism / Parallels

[Mezzaphor]

A thread for noting parallels and potential symbolism. In other words, a thread for reading too much into obscure details. (Non-alchemy symbolism, as there's already a thread for alchemy.)

To start things off, here's my barely-organized observations and thoughts:

Wings: These fall into two types. First, there's the fully functional wings of the Tictocs and the Kershaws.

Second, there's decorative or vestigial wings: Robot, Sivo, and the Court's floaty sky thing had these (the "feathers" on the Forest FST could also be interpreted as wings). The fact that Robot loses his wings in the process of getting his wooden arm from Ysengrin makes me think the stylized wings are symbolic of the Court.

And, in contrast to the aforementioned flightless wings, there's the wingless flight of the Suicide Fairies and Kat's hovercraft.

Tests: So far, the only people to permanently relocate from the Wood to the Court or vice versa have been those who pass a test and receive new bodies: the other Suicide Fairies and the Kershaws. Those who go to the Wood--or even the far side of the Annan Waters--without the test (Robot, Shadow2, Annie) have been marked/changed and sent back.

Empathic environment: The two big tearjerker scenes are Annie's crying for her mum and Kat's final moments with Alistair. These are also the only two scenes that occur in bright, sunlit environs (even if the sun in the former scene was artificial). I think the light in these scenes could also be symbolic illumination: Annie finally bares her soul (or part of it) to Kat; Kat learns the truth about Ali and with that knowledge she's able to be thankful rather than resentful. (I also think the contrast between the sad mood and the shiny sunlight actually enhances the punch-in-the-gut effect of these scenes: I'll admit here that Kat's dazed smile at the end of chapter 13 brought me closer to tears than any amount of bawling on her part would have.)

And rain is a pretty common symbol for purification, but whatever happened to Zimmy in that storm was WAY more than symbolism.

Names: Over in the alchemy thread, several people noted the significance of the names Antimony, Surma, and Stibnite. This made me wonder about the meanings of the other names. So I looked the other names up on wikipedia and google. I'll let you decide which are significant and which are not.

Anthony: from the Roman name Antonius, derived from Etruscan of unknown meaning. Possibly related to anthos, Greek for "flower".

Katerina: from katharós, Greek for "pure".

Anja: from Anya, Russian for "graceful" and Sanskrit for "inexhaustible". Comes from Anna / Hannah, Hebrew for grace, mercy, charm, or favor.

Donald: Scotch Gaelic for "ruler of the world".

James: derived roundabout from Jacob / Yaʻaqov, Hebrew for "grasps by the heel."

William: from the German name Wilhem. Wil = will, desire. Helm = helmet, protection.

Janet: diminutive feminine form of John.

John: Hebrew for "God is good".

Sullivan: Irish (Gaelic?) for "little black-eyed one".

Paz: Spanish for "peace".

Basil: Greek for "royal / kingly".

Gamma: third letter of the Greek alphabet, third Greek numeral.

Zeta: sixth Greek letter, seventh Greek numeral (due to digamma, former sixth Greek letter, falling into disuse).

Alistair: from Alexander, Greek for "protector of men".

Mort: French for "dead." Possibly an abbreviation of Mortimer, from the French for "dead water."

Jones: possibly an Anglicization of Johansson or Jonsson, which are Scandinavian for "son of John". Or it's derived from Jonah (Hebrew for dove).

Parley: a conference between enemies or rivals. From the French parler, "to speak".

Andrew: from Andreas, ancient Greek for "strong, manly or courageous."

Tea: either a drink made by distilling the leaves of the tea plant, or an alternate spelling of Téa, short for Teresa, "one who reaps".

[AluK]

Loss of wings usually means fall from grace, loss of purity. Somewhat matches what happened to Robot, being tainted, at the same time, by evil and organic-ness.

One could say that Kat wingless flight was an exercise of altruistic overcoming, reaching the grace by helping someone.

I think I might be reading a little to much into it. ;D

[UbiquitousDragon]

What about the wolf? Annie's toy that then becomes the vessel for Rey, and General Ysengrin's wolf head. Rey is known for being tricksy and Ysengrin is clearly not all that honest by when he 'accidentally' dropped those seeds. Even as Annie's toy, the wolf had lockpicks, implying some sort of deviancy.

[jimmynohands]

mezzaphor said:

Sullivan: Irish (Gaelic?) for "little black-eyed one".

Um... no. Sorry. Sullivan is derived from O'Sullivan, which translates as "Ó Súilleabháin", an old Irish clan name. 'Ó' is "son of", "súil" is "eye", and "amháin" is "one". Translation: "son of the one-eyed," or rephrasings thereof.

[Hazel]

jimmynohands said:

'Ó' is "son of"...

I can't remember where I read it, but I'm fairly sure that 'Ó' is an anglicized 'ua', meaning 'grandson'. Fairly close, though.

Great post, Mezzaphor.

[jimmynohands]

No, "Ó" is Irish. Directly translates as "from" ("ó am go ham" directly translates as "from time to time").

And there's a reason I'm so sure about this. (",)

[Hazel]

Really? I just checked the etymology dictionary and it says the following:

O'
as a prefix in Irish names, from Ir. ó, ua (O.Ir. au) "descendant."

[Uglyhead]

Don't you see? It's all the same thing. "From" as in "Descended from", and sons and grandsons are descendants, right?

[Mezzaphor]

Is using an Irish clan name as part of a given name normal?

aluk said:

Loss of wings usually means fall from grace, loss of purity. Somewhat matches what happened to Robot, being tainted, at the same time, by evil and organic-ness.

One could say that Kat wingless flight was an exercise of altruistic overcoming, reaching the grace by helping someone.

And maybe when Reynardine first took possession of the wolf toy, and the lockpicks briefly took the shape of wings, it was symbolic foreshadowing that Annie's influence will ultimately redeem him?

I think I might be reading a little to much into it. ;D

That's the point. ;D

ubiquitousdragon said:

What about the wolf? Annie's toy that then becomes the vessel for Rey, and General Ysengrin's wolf head. Rey is known for being tricksy and Ysengrin is clearly not all that honest by when he 'accidentally' dropped those seeds. Even as Annie's toy, the wolf had lockpicks, implying some sort of deviancy.

Also, the wolf was a symbol of the element antimony. So I think Annie is the wolf; Rey is a fox who's becoming wolf-like.

I think the wolf symbol is being used for nobility and strength. Thus, Rey seems to have become more altruistic since possessing the wolf toy, while Ysengrin has slipped closer to the brink of insanity since giving up his wolf form to become a wolf-tree with Scary Gardening Skills.

[jimmynohands]

hazelly said:

Really? I just checked the etymology dictionary and it says the following:

O'
as a prefix in Irish names, from Ir. ó, ua (O.Ir. au) "descendant."

Fair enough. Though considering that a female Sullivan is "Ni" Shuilleabhain (can't find anywhere to cut/paste the accents from - I suggest one lives with it ",), the standard translation of "son of", "daughter of" seems acceptable.
And it is the standard translation; unless exempted (due to dyslexia or other 'language difficulty'), every child in Ireland gets 12-14 years of Irish language lessons.

The fact that we're almost all terrible at it is another question. (",)

mezzaphor said:

Is using an Irish clan name as part of a given name normal?

Not really, but there's no difference between an Irish clan name and a standard Anglophone surname anymore (bar the fact that the clan name has a weird translation ",); the last clan heads left Ireland in 1607.

[todd]

I wonder if Reynardine spending more time now in his full-fledged wolf form than in his stuffed animal form might be a symbol of Annie moving out of childhood, with the "plush toy wolf" fading out accordingly, to be replaced by something far grander and more grown-up.

[Aspen d'Grey]

todd said:

I wonder if Reynardine spending more time now in his full-fledged wolf form than in his stuffed animal form might be a symbol of Annie moving out of childhood, with the "plush toy wolf" fading out accordingly, to be replaced by something far grander and more grown-up.

I mentioned this in a nother thread before I saw this one, but my thought is that he feels he needs to protect her more now that Coyote's taken an interest in her- notice the other times he's taken this form,when he had to confront Coyote and when he was helping her escape from the Robot complex.

[gdwarf]

Completely random, and almost certainly meaningless, but I find the name "The one-eyed one" (Sullivan) to be interesting, simply because Odin (Norse god of all sorts of things, including knowledge) only had one eye, he's famous for it, in fact.

Oh, and hello to everyone, new(ish) reader, decided to jump on the forums.

[Aspen d'Grey]

Hmm... For once, I think that it might actually be possible we're reading too much in to a character. In other news, welcome to the forums, gdwarf!

[todd]

A friend of mine informed me that red hair was believed to be a sign of magical abilities. And both Annie and Surma are redheads. I wonder....

[gdwarf]

Thinking even further on this silly Odin parallel, he was famous for having two ravens who gathered knowledge for him. Remind you of anything?

[Mezzaphor]

aspengrey said:

Hmm... For once, I think that it might actually be possible we're reading too much in to a character.

Really, that's the whole point of this thread. ;D

Here's a repost of something that Todd wrote in another thread that's just so cool:

todd said:

It occurred to me earlier today that a big advantage of Basil's account of the true story concerning himself and Theseus was that it helped set things up for Chapter Three. In Basil's story, we have a confrontation between a warrior-hero and a mythical creature, in which it turns out that the warrior-hero wasn't so noble and the mythical creature wasn't a villainous monster but a peaceful, gentle person being wrongfully persecuted. In "Reynardine", Annie initially believes that the "dragon" Reynardine is also being wrongfully imprisoned and mistreated and that the "dragon-slayer" is the villain, which results in her seeking Reynardine out and almost becoming possessed by him. Because we have only recently read about Theseus's bad behavior towards Basil, we are subsequently prepared to believe that the conflict between Reynardine and Sir Eglamore is a similar case, just as Annie does - so that we can side with her as she searches for the holding pen rather than seeing it as a case of foolishly walking into a trap, and share in her shock when Reynardine reveals his true nature and tries to possess her. This time around, in contrast to the revisionist take on Theseus and the Minotaur in the preceding chapter, the warrior-hero facing the mythical creature really is a hero, and saves Annie's life.

I don't know if Tom planned it that way; it might be just a coincidence. But I think that it's worth thinking about.

Something else: I think Zimmy and Gamma are a collective foil for Annie and Kat. Both are pairs of strange girls with unusual talents. (I like the way ch 5 is titled "Two Strange Girls". since the chapter introduced Zimmy and Gamma, one would assume it refers to them, but the title page prominently features Annie and Kat, while Z&G are represented by letters on a banner.) Both are pairs with complementary personalities.

Which brings up the difference between the two groups' dynamics: Annie and Kat have been supporting each other in their different ways about equally. With Zimmy and Gamma, however, the support that Gamma is giving seems to far outweigh what Zimmy reciprocates. Emphasis on "seems". While I don't doubt her altruism one bit, I wonder if Gamma also needs Zimmy in some fundamental way. And I'm sure that if Gamma asked, Zimmy would do anything to help her.

[Aspen d'Grey]

The Zimmy + Gamma as Annie & Kat foil has certainly been discussed before, on the other hand, we've seen that Kat is completely unwilling to associate at all with Zimmy, (while Annie is willing to give her quite a bit of help) so, it's curious how it would work out.

[Mezzaphor]

Annie and Gamma are both rather trusting and inclined to believe the best of others (initially, at least). Kat and Zimmy, on the other hand, are more "once bitten, twice shy". And they each have enough of a rough edge (in Zimmy' case, more than enough) to rub each other the wrong way.